The apolitical legitimacy of "evidence-based medicine" offers a practical means for ethnography and critical social-science-and-humanities-of-health theory to transfer survival resources to structurally vulnerable populations and to engage policy and services audiences with urgent political problems imposed on the urban poor in the United States that harm health: most notably, homelessness, hyperincarceration, social service cut-backs and the War on Drugs. We present four examples of collaborations between ethnography and clinical research projects that demonstrate the potentials and limits of promoting institutional reform, political debate and action through distinct strategies of cross-methodological dialogue with epidemiological and clinical services research. Ethnographic methods alone, however, are simply a technocratic add-on. They must be informed by critical theory to contribute effectively and transformatively to applied health initiatives. Ironically, technocratic, neoliberal logics of cost-effectiveness can sometimes render radical service and policy reform initiatives institutionally credible, fundable and capable of generating wider political support, even though the rhetoric of economic efficacy is a double-edged sword. To extend the impact of ethnography and interdisciplinary theories of political-economic...

Introduction to ethnographic practices: the study of and communicating about culture. Reading and discussion of classics of anthropological field work, contemporary critiques, and innovative practices. From the course home page: Course Description This course involves reading about how to do fieldwork, practicing fieldwork, reading ethnographies and about ethnography, and practicing writing ethnography. We will move from an overview of ethnography, to getting into the field, to writing fieldnotes, to analyzing data and writing a short ethnographic piece. We will, as you must in doing fieldwork and writing ethnographies, intersperse reading with fieldwork to theoretically inform both the fieldwork and the writing. The ethics of fieldwork and obligations to research subjects are discussed throughout the semester.

This research seeks to identify views of the body and learning the authors Boris Cyrulnik and Merleau - Ponty, thus tracing reflective for the educational field in several areas, with emphasis on physical education paths . We notice that the above authors present a wide collection of books, needing to develop this theoretical construct a limitation in their works. Therefore , on the theme of the body , were used mainly books The Sixth Sense , Boris Cyrulnik and Phenomenology of Perception , Merleau- Ponty , as both present in their organizational context a specific chapter on this subject . The phenomenological approach is included as path to be taken to devise this study because it is based on daily reflections that the human being perceives through his experiences with his peers and mainstream culture. The phenomenological reduction was carried out from the readings and interpretations of texts, writers and commentators, as well as approaching with life aspects of experience as a police officer and professor of ethics. The interpretation points to the understanding of body and learning that can be propagated within the Physical Education and as a way to understand and learn the constructs lived through sensitivity. The design of the body...

Este trabajo pretende aportar algunos elementos para la reflexi??n epistemol??gica sobre las condiciones de emergencia del pensamiento social sobre el otro en la disciplina antropol??gica, considerando el proceso de construcci??n del objeto de estudio y las distintas modalidades de percepci??n (tradiciones). Con este prop??sito se analizan las representaciones sociales que subyacen a la producci??n antropol??gica de la escuela evolucionista y funcionalista desde las principales categor??as de an??lisis elaboradas a partir de la crisis disciplinaria de los a??os 60 del siglo XX. La pregunta central que motiva las siguientes l??neas es ??c??mo se ha articulado el saber y el poder en el nacimiento y desarrollo de la antropolog??a y la construcci??n de la otredad?; This work seeks to provide elements for the epistemological reflection on the conditions of the emergence of social thought on the other in the discipline of Anthropology, considering the process of construction of the objective of the study and the different modalities of perception (traditions). With this aim, the social representations underlying anthropological production of the evolutionist and functionalist schools are analysed from the main categories of analysis drawn up from the disciplinary crisis of the 1960s. The central question behind this work is: ???How has knowledge and power been articulated in the birth and development of anthropology and the construction of the otherness.

Edgar Morin, a lo largo de su obra, se propone un proyecto antropol??gico que requiere a la larga el desarrollo de un pensamiento que se acabar?? denominando ??complejo??; un pensamiento que a su vez necesita encontrar la fundamentaci??n en una nueva antropolog??a. Este bucle gira, se abre cr??ticamente a todo logro que pueda alimentarlo, avanza, primero difusamente y cada vez con mayor precisi??n, en la laboriosa gestaci??n de la antropolog??a compleja moriniana. El presente art??culo trata de marcar las sucesivas etapas de la construcci??n del proyecto de la antropolog??a general, as?? como las bases epistemol??gicas sobre las que est?? construido.; Throughout the works of Edgar Morin, he has proposed an anthropological project which requires the long-term development of a thought system that is labelled ??complex??; a thought system that in turn needs to find the foundation in a new anthropology. This loop rotates, critically opening all achievements that can feed it. It advances, first diffusely, and every time with more precision, in the laborious gestation of Morin's complex anthropology. This article outlines the successive stages of this construction in the project of general anthropology, as well as the epistemological foundations on which it is built.

Arguing that anthropological uses of "supernatural" rarely provide accurate portrayals of others' lifeworlds, this essay historizes ethnographic tropes including decontextualization and binary thinking. Through decontextualization and binary thinking, anthropologists have remained insensitive to the epistemic violence working to peripheralize tribal ways of knowing. Drawing from fieldwork with the Yoeme Indians of northwest Mexico, this author demonstrates what is at stake and what can be gained by utilizing non-english words and concepts to understand better the standpoint of epistemologies grounded in indigenous ritual.

This article attempts to sketch a new anthropological
epistemology. It does so by revisiting the work that concepts do in
economic models, and by suggesting an alternative
‘anthropological concept of the concept’ for the economy. The
article looks to how concepts create their own limits of meaning
and uses the very idea of limit to rethink how conceptual thought
out-grows and transforms itself. We develop our epistemology by
looking at the socio-economic practices and institutions of the
Yukaghirs, a small group of indigenous hunters, living along the
Kolyma River in northeastern Siberia. The Yukaghirs’ moment of
creative possibilities is given through the reversibility of every one
of their economic practices, informed by the work of a shadow
force (ayibii) that aims for the limit. We gain insights from this
notion of reversibility to rethink the purchase of the ‘economic’ in
our contemporary world, questioning the validity of such
‘conceptual’ descriptions as virtualism or the knowledge economy.; Peer reviewed

L’article té com a fonament l’anàlisi dels plantejament teòrics de Fleck (amb els conceptes de col-lectiu de pensament i estils de pensament), Pike, (amb els conceptes d’èmic i ètic) i Agar (amb els plantejaments de l’estranyament i les quiebras), en relació a la validació de les conclusions i dels canvis de posicionament que es produeixen en l’investigador durant el transcurs del treball de camp antropològic. Per tal de mostrar el procés de validació que es du a terme en el treball de camp, basaré l’anàlisi dels diferents plantejaments teòrics en diferents exemples etnogràfics (Bohannan, Wolcott, i Malighetti).; The paper analyzes the Fleck’s, Pike’s and Agar’s theoretical basis related to the validation of the resultants and changes in the researcher’s ideas during the anthropological fieldwork process. Firstly, Fleck explains these changes through the concepts of thought collectives and thought styles. Secondly, Pike focuses his analyses on the concepts of emic and etic; and thirdly, Agar develops the estrangement approach and the breakdowns. In order to show the validation process that takes place in the anthropological fieldwork, we expose and analyses different ethnographic examples such as Bohannan...

Postulating the intrinsic relation that binds the analytical and the reflexive dimensions of anthropological knowledge,
this article critically recuperates the discursive conditions which articulate the ethnographical datum and social theory
in two important works: the classic The Gift, by Marcel Mauss, and Les Mots, la Mort, le Sorts (Deadly Words),
by Jeanne Favret-Saada. Based on a comparative approximation of the meta-theoretical circle of hermeneutics
and the theoretical circles of the gift and sorcery, the text attempts to produce an epistemological reflection on
the articulation between anthropological knowledge and native knowledge. By crossing information originated in those three circles, it builds an argument which starts from the gifts theory in the direction of an epistemology of the gift, or the gift of the theory.; Postulando a indissociabilidade entre as dimensões analítica e reflexiva do conhecimento antropológico, o artigo
realiza a recuperação crítica das condições discursivas que articulam os dados etnográficos e a teoria social em
duas obras importantes: o clássico Ensaio sobre a Dádiva, de Marcel Mauss, e Les Mots, la Mort, les Sorts, de
Jeanne Favret-Saada. A partir da aproximação comparativa entre o círculo meta-teórico da hermenêutica e os
círculos teóricos da dádiva e da feitiçaria...

At first glance, the postmodern spiritual 'scene' appears 'sociologically messy, experiential, multifaceted, ecological, provisional and collective' (Petrolle 2007) and ofuncertain epistemic provenance. Here, I ask: can Roland Benedikter's (2005) conception of postmodern dialectic and spiritual turn, help us understand postmodern spirituality and can it assist in a construction of a postmodern epistemology of spirituality? The current argument constitutes a meta-theoretical exploration of:  Deconstruction and neo-essentialism as representing the significant dialectic in philosophical postmodernism. Deconstruction is presented as an apophatic moment in Western thought about 'knowing' and 'being' whilst postmodern neo-essentialism, though contextualised by antirealism and ambiguity, palpably suggests itself.  Postmodern trends which derive from the dialectic.  How these epistemic trends influence methodology in the study of spirituality.  How a trans-traditional (anthropological) spirituality might incorporate insights about transformation from a complex of epistemologies in which, theories of 'self' abound. In the conclusion an attempt is made to describe how postmodern spirituality expresses itself in society.